The goal in Franchise Ball is to have a winning team of course. Winning enough games in a season to clinch your division, and advance to the post season, and hopefully advance through the playoffs to a World Championship. The sections below detail how the playoff elimination process operates.

There are 3 playoff phases in the post-season : Tiebreaker Games (the 21st of the month), League playoff games (the 22nd), and world the playoffs + world series (23rd - 28th, depending on how many games are needed). The world series is a 3 game series that takes place on the final day of the post-season.

There are 6 teams per division, and 8 divisions (48 teams) in each league ultimately. Although, not every league will have exactly 48 teams. In fact, there will always one league (the newest one) that doesn't have 8 divisions, because a new league is always being formed by new Franchise's.

Each season spans the first 20 days of each month. After this duration, 8 teams from each league move on to the playoffs, the division champions. These 8 teams all advance to an 8 team league playoff bracket. The league playoff games are all simulated on the same day (2 days after the regular season ends, the 22nd of the month). If there are any ties for 1st place, there is a day of tiebreaker games (the day following the end of the regular season, the 21st of the month) reserved for breaking any 2-way or multi-way ties for first. The sections below detail how each playoff phase operates.

Conditional Tiebreaker Phase :

The tiebreaker phase of games will occur conditionally on the 21st. All games are sudden death. The majority of divisions will not have ties, but this day is reserved for any that occur. Below lists the ways each multi-way tie is broken.

2-way : The 2 top teams play a one game playoff.

3-way : 2 teams play each other. 1 random picked team is given bye. winner of game plays bye team.

4-way : 2 games featuring 2 teams play. The winners play each other.

5-way : same as 4-way, but 1 random team gets a bye. with 3 teams left, apply the 3-way method for remaining teams.

6-way : 3 games are played. with the 3 teams left after this, apply the 3-way method.

7-way : 3 games are played. with 4 teams left after this, apply the 4-way method.

8-way : 4 games played resulting in 4 teams, apply the 4-way method. (same process as league playoffs).

League Playoffs :

The League playoffs occur on the 22nd of the month. All games are sudden death. The teams are seeded in a 8 team bracket : 1st seed plays 8th, 2nd plays 7th, 3rd plays 6th, 4th plays 5th, with the higher seeds getting home field advantage. Each playoff set spans over the 3 rounds, and a total of 7 games (4, 2, 1 = league championship). For the exception that your league is new with less than 8 divisions, the following process occurs under each "number of teams" condition :

1 division : winner of division becomes the league champion.

2 divisions : one game playoff to determine champion.

3 divisions : 1 wildcard team (best win % 2nd place team) becomes the 4th seed. Then the 1st plays 4th seed, 2nd plays 3rd. The winners play each other for the league championship.

4 divisions : 1st seed plays 4th. 2nd plays 3rd. The winners play each other for the league championship.

6 divisions : 2 wildcards (top 2 win % teams aside from division champions) become the 7th and 8th seeds. Winners play each other to the league championship.

7 divisions : 1 wildcard team (best win % 2nd place team) becomes 8th seed. Winners play each other to the league championship.

World Playoffs :

The World Playoffs is the final postseason phase that determines who will play for the World Championship, the Franchise Ball World Series. All games are sudden death. The world playoffs start on the 23rd of the month, and last until 2 teams remain. After 2 top teams have been determined, the world series is schedule and played on the following day. The world series is a best of 3 game series. Whoever wins 2 games first, becomes the World Champion. Below details how the process of elimination operates in the world playoffs :

To gracefully eliminate an odd number of teams of any value that is not a power of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, etc), Franchise Ball grants random Byes for each round of world playoffs play. For example, if there are 17 leagues, we need to determine 2 teams out of 23.

For 23 team league champions, the process would operate as follows :

Round 1 : The closest power of 2 number below 23 is 16. So we will issue 7 random byes (23 - 16 = 7) for the first round. After the games are played, 15 teams remain (16 / 2 = 8, 8 + 7 = 15).

Round 2 : The next closest power of 2 below 15 is 8, so we take 7 more byes (15 - 8 = 7). After these games are played, 11 teams remain (8 / 2 = 4, 4 + 7 = 11)

Round 3 : following the same formula, we get 3 bye teams (11 - 8 = 3). After the games, 7 teams remain.

Round 4 : 3 teams remain (7 - 4 = 3).

Round 5 : one team gets a bye, and the other 2 teams play each other.

We now have 2 teams remaining. These 2 teams will play the next day in a 3 game series to determine the Franchise Ball world champion.